Author page for Orion Kriegman

Orion Kriegman is the founder of Jamaica Plain New Economy Transition (JP NET), a pilot-project in Boston pioneering community resilience and Co-Director for the New England NET of the Institute for Policy Studies, doing the same at a regional level. He is also an Associate at Tellus Institute, where he served for many years as Coordinator of the Great Transition Initiative (GTI). He coordinated the creation of the Urban Ecovillage Network and was the Project Officer for Reflecting on Peace Practice, a practitioner’s learning network for peace-building efforts in internal armed conflicts. He also worked in Guatemala with the Organization of American States to help government and civil society implement the policies outlined in the peace accords.
He received a Masters in Public Policy and Urban Planning at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government in 2004.

Tellus Publications (Selected)

Myriad civil society organizations (CSOs) are addressing the full range of environmental and social problems, including climate change, food insecurity, droughts, resource scarcity, and poverty. Despite many successes, these perilous problems (and more) constitute a sustainability crisis that calls into question the efficacy of current CSO strategies. More transformative approaches, drawing on cutting-edge theory and practice, are required for CSOs to fulfill their role of helping humanity meet contemporary challenges. The Great Transition scenario offers a holistic framework for changing course.

We confront daunting twenty-first century challenges hobbled by twentieth century institutions. In a world ever more interdependent, deepening global-scale risks—climate change, financial instability, terrorism, to name a few—threaten the planetary commonwealth, even the continuity of civilization. Yet coherent and timely responses lie beyond the grasp of our myopic and disputatious state-centric political order. Closing this perilous gap between obsolete geopolitics and emerging geo-realities delineates an urgent political endeavor: constructing a legitimate and effective system of world governance. Key steps on that path involve reforming the United Nations and nurturing new venues for the meaningful exercise of global citizenship.

Adequate mitigation of the risks of climate change requires rapid displacement of fossil fuels with carbon-free energy sources. This imperative has prompted a growing chorus of energy analysts, policymakers, and industry advocates to press for a resurgence of nuclear energy. Even some environmentalists are urging reconsideration of the nuclear option, so long anathema to their own movement. Yet, with critical problems unsolved—safety and cost, waste storage, and nuclear weapons proliferation—nuclear power remains a deeply problematic response to the climate challenge.

Orion Kriegman examines the potential for a global citizens movement by drawing on relevant lessons from past and current social movements. He argues that, although the emergence of such a movement might not be probable, it is nonetheless possible at this historical moment of growing interdependence and collective risk. He addresses the missing ingredients for the development of such a movement and points to further avenues for assessing its possibilities.